Sagal's civics quiz via motorcycle

Most people know Peter Sagal as the host of the popular NPR program “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me,” but now he’s trying his hand at television.

“How could I keep this face away from the viewers of America?” he joked with POLITICO. And it’s the kind of television show that politicos will eat up: “Constitution USA with Peter Sagal” follows him as he takes a motorcycle trip around the country to learn more about the “Constitution as it’s lived today.”

Story Continued Below

“I went to Northern California to talk to marijuana growers and cannabis activists and same-sex couples who want to get married. I went to Tyler, Texas, to talk to immigrants who were part of the case that established the right of education for immigrants. … We talked to people who were basically living the Constitution whether they wanted to or not, as opposed to the usual array of pundits or activists who have opinions about it.”

What he learned, among other things, is that most Americans don’t know their Constitution terribly well.

“We rode my motorcycle up and down a parade route in Evanston, Ill., on the Fourth of July and we said, ‘What does the Constitution mean to you?’ And we stuck cameras and microphones in people’s faces and they all came back with ‘Oh, it means freedom! It means life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness!’ And, that’s not in the Constitution. And there are some people who, because of ‘Schoolhouse Rock,’ could sing the preamble but most people don’t really understand what the Constitution says, specifically, and they don’t understand what it doesn’t say.”

Sagal said most Americans he talked to thought the Constitution “guarantees them whatever it is they feel most strongly about,” and that’s not always the case.

“What they don’t understand is that most of the Constitution really doesn’t talk about rights and liberties. That’s the Bill of Rights, it’s important. Most of the Constitution doesn’t settle arguments. It gives us a forum through a very carefully designed form of government to have arguments without killing each other, which was, in the late 18th century, a pretty new thing in human experience.”

Sagal says he’s steering clear of the debate over whether the Constitution is a “dead” or “living” document because then “you’re getting into a liberal vs. conservative argument — it’s usually seen that way — and I want to stay away from that because there are a lot of different arguments to be made about interpretation.” But, he says, “you cannot argue that the meaning of the Constitution has not changed profoundly since its writing and not just through the amendment process.”

What makes the Constitution a successful document, says Sagal, is less the document itself than the people’s willingness to believe in it. (He says, “You could say it’s worked, with an asterisk.”)

“The Constitution is only as alive as we collectively have decided it is today,” he said. ”I’ve been calling it the Tinkerbell of national charters because Tinkerbell only lives if you clap, right? Or if you say, ‘I do believe in fairies, I do!’ It’s like this: ‘I do believe in civics, I do!’ And everybody believes in it, and we move on. And it’s an amazing phenomenon.”

“Constitution USA” debuts on PBS on May 7.

Sagal says that, regrettably, “I did not get to keep the motorcycle. This is PBS.”